“Careful, Ray. You don't want to drop that.”

“I'm not going to drop it, Fraser.” Breathing a little heavy, Ray rested the small dresser on the third floor landing. A few steps behind, Fraser watched his partner closely. Both men were drained from the continued exertion of moving load after load of their possessions (mostly Ray's) to their newly rented walk-up. Ray was shaking a little, his gel-stiffened spikes undulating like sheaves of wheat in the wind.

Climbing the last few steps to squeeze onto the narrow landing beside Ray, Fraser surveyed the once-elegant 1920s building that was their new home. The foyer and staircase featured art deco wallpaper, plaster ceiling medallions and oak crown molding. The apartments all had ten-foot ceilings, which meant that each apartment had a much higher ceiling than was today's norm. It also meant the staircase up which they were lugging their belongings, was very, very steep. It curled around a central atrium like a sleeping snake and seemed to get steeper and steeper as the day wore on.

“Really, Ray. It's been a long day. We're both suffering from muscle fatigue and bound to be a little ungainly.” Fraser offloaded his current burden: three cardboard boxes, a rather ugly lamp and Speedy's terrarium (minus Speedy) onto the dirty, but deep window well. Reaching over, he gently kneaded Ray's right shoulder. “We're probably suffering from dehydration and carbohydrate depletion at this very moment, not to mention low glycogen and glucose levels. Did you know that even mild dehydration—as little as two percent of your body weight—can impair your…?

Ray shrugged off Fraser's hand impatiently. “I'm fine. I'm fine. I will not drop this dresser.”

“You might consider— Ray. Ray! Ray? Ray!”

If a small chest of drawers could be said to swan dive, then that's what it did. The two weary men peered down the atrium, entranced as the dresser tumbled and crumbled on its fateful journey earthward. It thudded almost gracefully down the stairs in a bizarre, gravitational gavotte, molting chunks of high gloss, faux-ivory laminate on the stairs like discarded feathers.

“It's just like ballet.” Ray sounded almost wistful, watching as it hovered on the edge of the first floor landing, poised like a great soaring bird riding a thermal, before finally pirouetting down the last set of stairs.

“Well, it's not entirely unlike ballet, Ray.”

It landed at the bottom and sort of just… collapsed in on itself, there to rest. To die. To move no more.

“Fuck,” Ray said conversationally, eyes never leaving the pressboard carnage below.

“Stella's?” Fraser asked quietly.

“Yeah.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder toward the mirror-image dresser that rested casually on the worn hall carpet. It seemed unaware of its lifemate's cruel fate.

Turning from the wreckage below, Ray strode toward the hapless dresser and jerked it up to balance on one hip, returning purposefully to his spot at the top of the stairs.

“Surely you don't mean to heave this perfectly good chest of drawers down these stairs!”

“They're a set, Frase. A pair. They mate for life.”

He began the backward arc that would build the momentum he needed to hurl the second dresser down to join its fallen comrade. Fraser reached out to stop him, fingers locking on wrist like fleshy handcuffs, two sets of tired muscles straining in opposite directions. Then Ray relaxed.

“Fuck.” he repeated softly, not meeting Fraser's eyes.

“Ah. But the tallboy would grieve for it.”

Gusting out a huge sigh, Ray slowly lowered the surviving chest to the floor. “You're right Fraser. I'm just tired, and pissed that Huey and Dewey never showed and maybe just a little freaked out about this whole moving in thing.” He flashed a grin made all the more sincere and reassuring by its nervousness. A broad sweep of his hand added an additional layer of grime to his forehead.

 He turned his back on the stairwell, grabbed the dresser again and hauled it into their new apartment. Fraser followed, dropping his load of belongings on the cushionless couch pushed awkwardly against one living room wall. He found Ray in their bedroom and watched as Ray tenderly positioned the small chest of drawers next to the bed with the matching headboard, across from the faux-ivory tallboy.

 Fraser told himself sternly that he was far too pragmatic to care that this had been Ray and Stella's bedroom set, their marriage bed. He turned away, blinking rapidly, meaning to head back down for another load. Duty, as well as Dief who'd been left on the street to guard their belongings, barked. Loudly.

 “You're right, Frase.” Ray said again, just as Fraser reached the bedroom doorway. He turned back to see Ray begin to dump items from the box marked “F&R—bedroom” into the lower of the two drawers. A generous, lopsided heart was drawn in red magic marker around the words. A huge grin bloomed on Fraser’s face. The bedroom and everything in it was theirs now. It didn't matter who'd come before.

 Ray smiled back. “We do need at least one dresser next to the bed. For, you know, bed-type stuff. We do need one nightstand.”

End